The Lord of Pairings
by Zoe Nightshade
Summary: Sitting in a lemonade stand on the sidewalk of Olympus is the lord of all pairings. It is he, who hold the die to roll to decide whether you want to write a Percabeth, Perachel, a Thuke...whatever shipping, this is its origin.


**Here's my one-shot. Just warning you, this is for active PJO fandom members. If you don't get something, ask me. It's only funny if you know the people.**

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I sit at my desk on Olympus on the side of the street in front of Aphrodite's palace. Well, what _used _to be my desk. I used to have an office in the front room of Lady Aphrodite's front room. Then, the fandom started to fail and I got less customers, therefore, I could not pay my rent and the goddess made me do my work in her front garden in what appeared to be a movie theatre ticket stand. When storm-brain started Veritas, I was able to afford a bigger table to roll my many sided die on. When she stopped writing and the fandom began to rot some more, I was pushed out onto the sidewalk of Olympus to roll my die in a pitiful lemonade stand.

I look at the names written on my die. My die is not equal, you see, so some names tend to come up more often then others. _Percy Jackson_ and _Annabeth Chase _are the two sides on my die, followed by _Nico di Angelo_, poor boy. I roll him quite a lot. I roll him so much, in fact, that I charge a few extra drachma to whoever rolls him, and since twenty drachma is quite a pretty penny for a poor fanfiction writer, more writers who roll _Nico di Angelo_ can't afford to roll again and end up putting him with an OC.

I am the one and only Lord of Pairing. It was _me _young Ricky Riordan came to when he wanted to put some romance in his story based on his friend, Percy Jackson's great victory. People often spit at me or call me names when I tell them that it was I who rolled the name _Annabeth Chase _causing what I think is now called "Percabeth."

My cellphone vibrates. I look at the screen. It says:

You have a visitor!

Name: Zoë Nightshade

Category: Character

_Phew! _I sigh in relief when I see that it's the character, Zoë Nightshade and not the fanfiction writer. The only time she visited me was when she was doing a parody, making fun of my most popular pairing, Percabeth! Oh, and the fight we got into when she said she was not rather fond of pairings! Humph. The _nerve_ of that girl!

Zoë Nightshade stomps her way up to my stand.

"Why hello, Miss Nightshade," I said grinning. "Need a pairing for a fic?"

"No way!" she said. "What I want is for you to cross off my name from your die! I went on fanfiction today and saw a lemon fic with _me_ in it!"

I sighed as I crossed out _Zoë Nightshade_ with black marker. I couldn't _force_ someone to keep their name on the die, although the more names, the better.

"Thank you," Zoë said, striaghtening her posture before she leaves.

I look at my finances. I had receive eight reviews! See, this is how it works. When a writer wants me to roll the die for pairing, they pay be 1 drachma per roll (+20 if they roll Nico) and promise me half of the reviews they get on the story they are going to write using the pairing. Now, let's say that the writer gets half good reviews, half flames to make it easy. I can turn in the good reviews to Lord Hermes, and he will give me a drachma per review. The bad reviews, the flames, I either keep to cook my dinner with or give to Hestia for her hearth or Hephaestus for his forge.

My cell phone vibrates. The screen says:

You have a visitor!

Name: Aish Sheva

Category: Writer

Ah, it's Sheva. Oh, the flamer. Each of her flames on a pairing story means that I get some stupid flame instead of a review that I can turn in for a drachma. Should I tell her to stop flaming? No, because if the author who has been flamed changes their accepts her advice and changes their story, it will be better resulting in more than one good review they wouldn't have gotten had not Sheva flamed, which means more drachmas for me. Maybe I should tell her to flame more. No, instead, I should ask Honest101 to come back.

Sheva steps up to my stand.

"Forgot to pay your rent again?" she asks.

"Eh, I didn't forget. I just couldn't because-"

"This fandom is a disgrace!" she finishes for me.

"Part of it, anyway," I say. "So, what do you need?"

She hands me two drachma and says, "Two rolls, please."

I stare at her.

"_You _want to roll? _You_, out of all people?" I start to laugh. She rolls her eyes.

"Please, just roll."

I gather myself together, put her two drachma in my almost empty tin can, and pick up the heavy die, full of names. My cell phone vibrates. I've got a new visitor, but I ignore it. I'll find out soon enough.

"So," I say. "Anything in particular you want? At least one a god? One an overused character?"

"No thanks," she says. "I'm just going to write totally random pairing fic. I'm bored."

I roll, and a over-rolled name comes up: Annabeth Chase. Sheva writes the name in her notebook.

"And the second?" she asks.

I roll again: Rachel Elizabeth Dare, and shrug.

"You asked for random," I say.

"You can't get anymore random than that, can you?" she says as she writes _Rachel Elizabeth Dare _in her notebook.

"No," I say, "you can't."

"Thanks," she says.

"No problem," I say, "and remember, you owe me half your reviews."

"I know," she calls back as she steps out of sight.

I look at the screen of my cell phone to see who has come to see me, but the name has disappeared. He's here.

"So," I say. "Is it sonofdemeter, ChannySterling, or Element Knight, or can I call you 'Sod'? It does change quite a bit, now, doesn't it?"

"ConsiderMeGone. I'm done with PJO."

"Then why are you here?" I ask. "After all, I am the lord of _PJO _pairing, not _Sonny With a Chance_."

"Remember a long time ago, you rolled Silena Beaurguard and Percy Jackson?" he asks.

"Ah, yes, I do," I say. "You wrote _Silena's Stars_, didn't you? That didn't do so well, now, did it-"

"I deleted it."

"Yes, I know," I say. I know _everything _about every pairing fic written thanks to my die. There is a long pause. "What do you want?"

"I want all my reviews back," he says.

"Oh, Sod," I say.

"Just call me 'Matt'."

"Yes, then Matt, I'm afraid I already traded those reviews in for drachma."

"Can I have the drachmas?"

"No."

He glares at me for a while and mutters, "Bitch," and then stomps away.

My cell phone vibrates. I have two visitors. When I read their names, I freeze. I scream like a girl. My worst fear...well, _fears_: Delora and Cuchilla Azrael.

They paid me so many drachmas for a letter-fic they were writing. When it was published, not only did they demand all of it back since they hadn't written an actual story, but all they got was flames! No drachmas for me! And that letter-fic! I cry just thinking of it.

If you've ever read _Letter to Rickipoo!_, you'll understand.

As I see them coming, I shout, desperate, "Don't come any closer! You're both banned, and so is that what's-his-name...Baby Gunther!"

Delora smiles. Man, ever since she died her hair black, she's looked like the girl version of Michael Jackson!

"Aphrodite let us be unbanned!" she says victoriously.

"How?" I gasp. I'm dead now.

"It was our reward for writing lemon fics, and being mods on a lemon board!" Cuchilla says. Gods, she's freaky.

I think and think until I finally come up with a plan to save myself from these lemon queens.

"CLOSED!" I scream. "I'm closed!"

Both girls stop, whisper into each other's ears, and start to run towards me. Delora grabs my die and runs. Both girls snicker.

"Hey," I yell. "Give that back! Give that back right now!"

I chase after them, but it is clear they are both much faster than me. Oh, poor PJO fandom. You have a very random future.

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**Delora and Cuchilla read and approved this one-shot.**


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